Program Eleven • Faust and the Spirit of the 19th Century

A pinnacle of German literature, Goethe’s Faust reimagines the classic tale of the scholar who sells his soul to the devil as a complex philosophical drama. Touching on a host of Romantic themes, his retelling inspired music by some of the most important composers of the era, including Schubert, Schumann, Wagner, and Liszt.

For Berlioz, who considered Goethe one of literature’s three greatest figures, the story became an obsession. In La damnation de Faust, originally billed as an “opéra de concert,” Berlioz thought he had finally done justice to Goethe’s masterpiece. The work’s first audiences, however, felt differently. Recalling its two poorly attended, ill-received first performances, Berlioz wrote: “Nothing in all my artistic career ever wounded me so deeply as this unexpected indifference.” He could not know that, of all the musical settings of the work, his would become one of the best-loved and most highly respected. Expanding and enriching material from Huit scènes de Faust, his own earlier treatment of the same story, La damnation is now a beloved repertory staple.

Program Eleven presents the epic work in concert, with British-American tenor Joshua Blue as Faust, two-time Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke as Marguerite, bass-baritone Alfred Walker as Méphistophélès, and bass Stefan Egerstrom as the student, Brander. Anchored by Botstein and the ASO, their performance draws the Bard Music Festival—and all seven weeks of Bard SummerScape—to a fittingly dramatic close.